Clevo M570RU Review (Very Basic)

[Romanian]

Well, everyone's doing fancy shmancy reviews with pictures and such. A picture is worth a thousand words. Ten thousand words > one picture.

I've also uploaded some movies done in FRAPS at the bottom of the review.

Where/What Bought

I purchased my computer from R & J Technologies. They have great customer support, and have answered all of my questions promptly and politely. The reason I bought from them is because they are one of the few resellers to sell this Clevo as a barebones system, which saved me about $200 on the entire system. I spent $2000 for:

-- 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, 4mb cache
-- 1920x1200 WUXGA Glossy Screen
-- 120GB 7200RPM HDD
-- 1x2GB Patriot 667MHz 1x1GB OCZ (expecting it to arrive tomorrow)
-- Internal Bluethooth/Wireless N
-- Remaining basic setup (GPU, camera, etc)


Why Bought

My newest desktop has a Pentium 4 2.5GHz processor, 512mb of 333MHz DDR RAM, and a GeForce 4 Ti 4200. Another reason is that I'll be constantly moving from work to school to home, sometimes back and forth several times per day. I decided that I needed a notebook, but I could go with a desktop replacement because as soon as I get to my destination I'll be grounded there for a couple of hours. I decided this would be prime time, seeing as this notebook is at the top of the line and will be until the 8800 comes out.


Keyboard/Mouse

There is flex on the keyboard. It is not noticeable when typing, but you can see other keys move if you push relatively hard with your palm on the corners of the board, similar to the Thinkpad T30 I'm typing on right now. I am comparing this to the Dell Inspiron somethingorother (4 years old), which has no keyboard flex at all; no matter how hard you press on the keys, there's no flex. The trackpad mouse is very nice. It's textured, but not rough. The only bone I have to pick with it is that it's a bit overly sensitive. I bet that can be changed in mouse settings, though. The touch-mouse can be turned on and off with the Fn+F1 key.

Another thing about the keyboard is that it's "full-sized". It doesn't really feel like it though. The Backspace key is condensed a bit, and the numpad has some keys which are smaller than they should be. The keyboard is really more like a hybrid desktop/notebook board.


Screen

The thing I love about the screen is that, unlike most notebooks, the backlight can be turned off. That can get you out of a pickle, in case you're trying to hide something on your screen. I got a WUXGA 1920x1200 glossy screen (options are WSXGA+ matte/glossy or WUXGA glossy on RJTech), just because I love high resolutions. Contrary to popular belief, gaming visuals are not brought to their knees if you lower the resolution. I was playing Oblivion last night, and it was automatically on 800x600 resolution. It looked amazing. It was not blurry at all. I thought I was playing on full resolution until I looked at my video settings.

The LCD screen has no visible light leakage at the bottom, sides, or top. The viewing angles from the left and right are very acceptable, but if you try looking from the screen straight on while it is at a 15 degree angle lower than normal, you'll have trouble. Same with 15 degrees higher than normal.


GPU

The M570RU has the third most powerful GPU on the market, and the first non-SLI GPU: Go 7950GTX. This is basically a faster version of the 7900GTX. It runs everything you throw at it, and probably will be able to do so at medium settings for the next year or so. One of the best things is that this GPU is MXM-IV/HE, which means that you should, both technically and theoretically, be able to upgrade it to a later sereies of graphics cards when they come out, be they MXM-I, II, III, or IV. This shoves the M570RU to the "Upgradeable Notebook" line. It is confirmed that you can place an 8700 in it, and it's very possible that even an 8800+ could fit inside. I do not have any benchmarks as of yet, because I still have to do some optimization tweaks. My driver apparently didn't properly install the first time around.


CPU

What can I say? It's a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo. I don't really have anything to compare it to, since I'm coming from a 2.5GHz P4. But it sure opens things fast. It's also confirmed that you can upgrade to a Penryn if you want to in the future.


Hard Drive

You have options for a hard drive up to, I think over 200GB. I may be wrong. Either way, it's a high number. Both 7200RPM and 5400RPM drives.


Memory

My love of this notebook is that it can support up to 4GB of RAM at 533 or 667MHz. I chose to save money and get some Patriot RAM from NewEgg, a 2GB stick for $100, rather than the 2GB stick offered on RJ for $140 (give or take 10)


Audio

The speakers are very nice. They have a built-in subwoofer, and they are much better than any notebook speakers I've ever heard, especially after you do the tweaks to the equalizer that comes with the driver CD. The driver isn't anythin to boast about. It's fine.

Note: some may find it intrusive that every time you plug something into a jack the driver window pops up to aks you what you plugged in, to optimize the audio.


Optical Drive

It comes with a DVD/CD+-RW or something fancy like that. You can swap it out yourself without voiding your warranty for another drive, such as HD or Blu-Ray


Jacks

There are several useful ports on the M570RU. It has four USB ports, which may be uncomfortable for some to use: two are on the back (one on top of another) and two are on the right side (next to each other). The internet connection cables are also on the right side of the computer, along with the antenna/cable adapter for a TV tuner. The Firewire is right next to the USB ports. On the back, we have monitor connectors (I'm not a monitor guy so I don't know what they are). Left side is only the optical drive. In the front there are four jacks: line in audio, line out audio, line in microphone, and another one (dark blue). The microphone is on the right side of the palm rest, and the webcame is smack in the middle of the top edge of the monior.

At the bottom right you will also notice a handful of lights. These include your normal charging/battery light, power light, CPU light, and wLAN light. It also has scroll lock, caps lock, and numlock LEDs.

The seven in one card reader is also a nifty little thing if you ever want to see pictures you've taken on your camera by sticking in your memory stick. It's located on the (?) side. (I've never used a memory reader before, so I have no idea what it looks like).

On the right side is also the ExpressCard.


Accessories

The Clevo comes with a carrying bag. I'm not sure if the Sager does as well. This bag is realy nice, and has a great build quality. It's a briefcase style bag with a sling if you want to hook it on. It has a pocket for your notebook with velcro to strap it tight, a pocket for your books, and a zipped-up pocket for accessories. The accessories that come are (VGA?) to (DVI?) converter, a dial-up connector, and the power brick. The power brick is quite large, but it doesn't really heat up.

One of the things that has really stood out to me is that the power cord is easy to pull out on accident while on your lap. I was playing around with Clevo on my lap for around 3 hours, without getting burned, and the power cord came out about four times. It doesn't go all the way out, only halfway. Don't be surprised if it says "battery low" and you thought you were on AC power. This isn't something major, just something worth noting.


Looks

This thing is really slick. The back of the notebook isn't all glossy or brushed metal or anything which is textured and can get fingerprints all over it or feel bad to the touch, it's just a simple, and surprisingly sturdy, shell. It's like the HP Pavilion notebooks before they had those glossy backs with the desings on them. The only glossy piece is at the very top of the notebook, apparently put there for the lulz. The one thing that is slightly "disturbing", for lack of a better word, is that they do an imitation carbon brush thing around the keyboard and mousepad (I've called it trackpad, touch-mouse, and now mousepad?). It is in fact made of plastic, and seems very cheap. It isn't cheap, but it seems to be so.

One of the most noticeable things is that it has an orange trim all around its side (can be selected to be white in future versions). It isn't neon, but more of a copper tone. When my warranty nears its end, I'm going to try to change the color to an eclectic green or blue. I'll tell you all how it goes.


Heat

Heat is not an issue on the M570RU. After playing some intense Oblivion where I sneak-attacked on some goblins and giant rats, the fans were going and I put my hand at the exhaust. I was very surprised to find that the air coming out was barely warm. The reason is probably that the fans go on every two minutes or so, but they are very quiet. If you were in a library or a shushed up place with your notebook, the fans wouldn't disturb anybody. Yes, they make a more high-pitched noise, but it's not bad at all. By high pitched I mean more of an audible noise.

Note: some argue that the fans are loud. I will try to get a microphone sampling of how loud they are, so you can reall tell.


Battery

The battery lasts a pretty short time as notebooks go. It took be about one hour at full brightness while installing XP to drain. I guess that's not *too* terrible, considering I was doing some pretty "intense" tasks at that brightness, but it could be better.


Upgradeability

It is very easy to open up and change components. It has one door with the fan exhausts, held tight by about 10 screws. Once you take these all out, it's a very easy lift up, and you have access to all of the parts inside. You might have to move some things out of the way, like the heatsink, to get to the parts such as GPU and CPU, but the HDD and RAM are right in front of you.

The CPU is Socket P, which means that you can upgrade from the Merom 800MHz FSB up to a Penryn processor.

The GPU, as I have said, is MXM-IV/HE, so you can upgrade it (might be a bit difficult).

The optical drive is upgradeable.

The HDD is upgradeable.

The RAM is upgradeably.


Conclusion

If there's anything I've forgotten or you want to know about, let me know. I didn't include webcam or microphone, simply because I didn't. I might when I get home.

Pros:

-- Quiet fans
-- Upgradeable GPU and CPU, both which are already good
-- True HD screen, which has a backlight which you can turn off
-- Nice build quality on the back with a great orange trim

Cons:

-- Imitation carbon around the keyboard, which may feel cheap
-- A tiny bit of flex on the keys
-- Relatively low battery life
-- Some might not enjoy positions of ports
-- Power cord is relatively easy to pull out while on lap

Other Thoughts:

-- Audio needs to be adjusted in equalizer to sound good
-- GPU is amazing
-- Great that you can open it up and change parts without voiding warranty
-- Would be better if they had a choice of more colors (like blue) for trim

Bottom Line:

I would recommend this notebook to someone who is due for an upgrade, or who wants the maximum blend of portability and power. The D900C is more powerful of course, but it has a terrible battery life. The Sager 2090 has better battery but isn't as powerful. This is the perfect machine







Media:



Call of Duty 2 on my screen was everything maxed out except for dynamic lighting, which was at medium. It was at 720p resolution. Sadly, I had to cut it down 15 seconds with Windows Movie Maker. This also converted it into normal 4:3 aspect ratio, making things look out of proportion. The framerate should show that the game was very playable at these settings.



Oblivion at 720p, with everything turned on 80% and maximum textures/body shadows etc, except for HDR which was only set at bloom. This was running at about 10 FPS faster. FRAPS took a chunk out of the framerate, so it looks a bit slower.



Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (Unreal Engine) at 720p, everything set to maximum. Again, FRAPS took a bite out of my FPS. It also looked smoother before the upload. Don't know why it looks more skippy now.

[Charles P. Jefferies]

Thanks for the rundown! It's great to see that a lot of people are happy with their machines. The NP5790 truly is the best single-GPU 17" gaming notebook on the market.

[dit_xi]

concise, without all the frills. I like it!

[bearz313]

Great review.
I think you are the only one that purchased from RJTech that also reviewed it.
My question for you after seeing all the Sagers...
Are there any differences that you can see?

I was going to buy 570u before I found out about the 570ru with the new Directx 10 graphics card. I hope I will not be waiting too much longer than December.

[Romanian]

I don't think you'll be waiting much later than September.

The main difference is that the Clevo doesn't have any stickers, save the SRS-WOW Audio sticker. There's no "INTEL CORE 2 DUO " or "nVidia: Better than ATI." stickers on the wrist-rest. That leaves it a lot cleaner, and nicer looking. I'll post a picture tonight.

[zury]

BIG BIG THANKS FOR THE REVIEW!!! Give me ur account number i ll send u some money

[Romanian]

Another thing that I forgot to mention was that it is very easy to open up and change components. It has one door with the fan exhausts, held tight by about 10 screws. Once you take these all out, it's a very easy lift up, and you have access to all of the parts inside. You might have to move some things out of the way, like the heatsink, to get to the parts such as GPU and CPU, but the HDD and RAM are right in front of you.

[Wu Jen]

Thanks for the review man!

[Agent CoolBlue]

very nice review but I would just like to make some notes.

the fans are considerably loud, definitely not quiet and the hard drive has a 250 GB option, not 200 gigs. The 200 gig is 7200 RPM while the 250 is 5400 RPM.

nice review all in all.

[maksin01]

Sweet... This IS the perfect machine! Still waiting for mine to arrive (probably will take another 3-4 weeks since I ordered the WSXGA glossy screen and I'm in Australia... )